Peter The Piccaninny Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDBDC EFEF CBCB GHGI JFJF KLKL MNMN CBCB JBJB OPOP QBQO BRBR SOSO COCO TPTP RPRP COCO OOOO CLCL RORO OOOO CBCB UOUO COCO VWVW OHOHHe has a name which can t be brought | A |
Within the sphere of metre | B |
But as he s Peter by report | C |
I ll trot him out as Peter | B |
I call him mine but don t suppose | D |
That I m his dad O reader | B |
My wife has got a Norman nose | D |
She reads the tales of Ouida | C |
- | |
I never loved a nigger belle | E |
My tastes are too aesthetic | F |
The perfume from a gin is well | E |
A rather strong emetic | F |
- | |
But seeing that my theme is Pete | C |
This verse will be the neater | B |
If I keep on the proper beat | C |
And stick throughout to Peter | B |
- | |
We picked him up the Lord knows where | G |
At noon we came across him | H |
Asleep beside a hunk of bear | G |
His paunch was bulged with possum | I |
- | |
Last stanza will not bear I own | J |
A pressure analytic | F |
But bard whose weight is fourteen stone | J |
Is apt to thump the critic | F |
- | |
We asked the kid to give his name | K |
He didn t seem too willing | L |
The darkey played the darkey s game | K |
We tipped him with a shilling | L |
- | |
We tipped him with a shining bob | M |
No Tommy Dodd believe us | N |
We didn t tumble to his job | M |
Ah why did Pete deceive us | N |
- | |
I being as I ve said a bard | C |
Resolved at once to foster | B |
This mite whose length was just a yard | C |
This portable impostor | B |
- | |
This babe I spoke in Wordsworth s tone | J |
See Wordsworth s Lucy neighbour | B |
I ll make a darling of my own | J |
And he ll repay my labour | B |
- | |
He ll grow as gentle as a fawn | O |
As quiet as the blossoms | P |
That beautify a land of lawn | O |
He ll eat no more opossums | P |
- | |
The child I to myself will take | Q |
In a paternal manner | B |
And ah he will not swallow snake | Q |
In future or goanna | O |
- | |
Will you reside with me my dear | B |
I asked in accents mellow | R |
The nigger grinned from ear to ear | B |
And said All right old fellow | R |
- | |
And so my Pete was taken home | S |
My pretty piccaninny | O |
And not to speak of soap or comb | S |
His cleansing cost a guinea | O |
- | |
But hang expenses I exclaimed | C |
I ll give him education | O |
A nig is better when he s tamed | C |
Perhaps than a Caucasian | O |
- | |
Ethnologists are in the wrong | T |
About our sable brothers | P |
And I intend to stop the song | T |
Of Pickering and others | P |
- | |
Alas I didn t do it though | R |
Old Pickering s conclusions | P |
Were to the point as issues show | R |
And mine were mere delusions | P |
- | |
My inky pet was clothed and fed | C |
For months exceeding forty | O |
But to the end it must be said | C |
His ways were very naughty | O |
- | |
When told about the Land of Morn | O |
Above this world of Mammon | O |
He d shout with an emphatic scorn | O |
Ah gammon gammon gammon | O |
- | |
He never lingered like the bard | C |
To sniff at rose expanding | L |
Me like he said em cattle yard | C |
Fine smell de smell of branding | L |
- | |
The soul of man I tried to show | R |
Went up beyond our vision | O |
You ebber see dat fellow go | R |
He asked in sheer derision | O |
- | |
In short it soon occurred to me | O |
This kid of six or seven | O |
Who wouldn t learn his A B C | O |
Was hardly ripe for heaven | O |
- | |
He never lost his appetite | C |
He bigger grew and bigger | B |
And proved with every inch of height | C |
A nigger is a nigger | B |
- | |
And looking from this moment back | U |
I have a strong persuasion | O |
That after all a finished black | U |
Is not the clean Caucasian | O |
- | |
Dear Peter from my threshold went | C |
One morning in the body | O |
He dropped me to oblige a gent | C |
A gent with spear and waddy | O |
- | |
He shelved me for a boomerang | V |
We never had a quarrel | W |
And if a moral here doth hang | V |
Why let it hang the moral | W |
- | |
My mournful tale its course has run | O |
My Pete when last I spied him | H |
Was eating possum underdone | O |
He had his gin beside him | H |
Henry Kendall
(1)
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